I find it VERY likely they had a junk policy. This is one of the most important things the ACA did, it defined what could be considered health insurance. Before the ACA, a company could sell you a policy that essentially covered nothing. Usually those junk policies had cleverly worded agreements that hid the fact that nothing was covered (pre-existing conditions, restrictive networks, carve-outs for expensive treatments, etc).
Since the majority of people don't run into those issues, they are blissfully unaware that if/when they have a major medical event they are under-insured.
If I understand the graph correctly, it looks like there's maybe a three percentage point increase. But given there is a 1 percentage point delta in the pre-ban data, that would seem to indicate there is at least a 1 point variation that must be ignored as irrelevant.
I'm not sure how they generated the error bars but that, to me, would suggest the relevant error could be +/- 1 percentage point. Meaning the delta could be at little as two percentage points.
My intuition says cellphone bans would have a positive impact, but I don't think I'd call this data conclusive. I'd want to see more data from earlier and later.
Also, if these are the same students, then test scores might be reflecting increased maturity. If it's different students of the same age, it could be a shift in some extra-educational factors affecting the younger generation.
I agree with you. In the industry today I feel there there are software engineers and there are programmers. The engineers design, architect, and invent. The programmers do the rote work. Of course it's not black and white, but that's at the extremes of the spectrum.
I'm hoping that AI programming pushes more people toward the engineering side and as it takes over the rote work side. There will be people far to the programmer side that might be put out of a job, but the creative, innovative, inventive engineering positions will persist.
I always tell clients (or users):
"If you bring your car to the mechanic because it's making a noise and tell them to replace the belt, they will replace the belt and you car will still make the noise. Ask them to fix the noise."
In other words, if you need expert help, trust the expert. Ask for what you need, not how to do it.
I would hope the mechanic would engage with the customer in more back and forth.
But sometimes power structures don't allow for it. I worked tech support in a number of companies. At some companies we were empowered to investigate and solve problems... sometimes that took work, and work from the customer. It had much better outcomes for the customer, but fixes were not quick. Customers / companies with good technical staff in management understood that dynamic.
Other companies were "just fix it" and tech support were just annoying drones and the company and customer's and management treated tech support as annoying drones. They got a lot more "you got exactly what you asked for" treatment ... because management and even customers will take the self defeating quick and easy path sometimes.
It is a common misconception that the "expert" knows the best. Expert can be a trainee, or may be motivated to make more for its organisation or have yet to encounter your problem.
On the other hand, if you are using your car for a decade and feel it needs a new belt - then get a new belt. Worst case scenario- you will lose some money but learn a bit more about an item you use everyday.
I am a qualified mechanic. I no longer work in the field but I did for many years. Typically, when people 'trust their instincts as a user' they are fantastically wrong. Off by a mile. They have little to no idea how a car works besides youtube videos and forum posts which are full of inaccuracies or outright nonsense and they don't want to pay for diagnosis.
So when they would come in asking for a specific part to be replaced with no context I used to tell them that we wouldn't do that until we did a diagnosis. This is because if we did do as they asked and, like in most cases, it turned out that they were wrong they would then become indignant and ask why we didn't do diagnosis for free to tell them that they were wrong.
Diagnosis takes time and, therefore, costs money. If the user was capable of it then they would also be capable enough to carry out the repair. If they're capable of carrying out the diagnosis and the repair then they wouldn't be coming to me. This has proved to be true over many years for everyone from kids with their first car to accountants and even electrical engineers working on complex systems for large corporations as their occupation. That last one is particularly surprising considering that an engineer should know the bounds of their knowledge and understand how maintenance, diagnosis and repair work on a conceptual level.
Don't trust your instincts in areas where you have no understanding. Either learn and gain the understanding or accept that paying an expert is part of owning something that requires maintenance and repair.
If you don't trust the expert then why are you asking them to fix your stuff? It's a weird idea that you'd want an idiot to do what you say because you know better.
If they're asking the mechanic to do X and they understand the mechanic is just doing X and NOT venturing to fix your problem. I guess that is fine.
I agree though it sets up a weird dynamic where folks might come back to the expert and complain a problem isn't fixed, but that's not what they asked for / they broke the typical expert and customer dynamic.
In my experience the best thing is to then convince the expert you are right, using your own expertise.
If your mechanic is too stupid to recognize the problem after you explain it then you don't have a mechanic, the set of hands you are directing is basically unskilled labor.
Drinking untreated water also only has the _potential_ to cause disease. Playing Russian roulette with a loaded revolver only has the _potential_ to cause death.
Luckily, science can quantify those potentials and determine when the reward outweighs the risks.
If we, as a country, decided to let people who drank unpasteurized milk or untreated water to die without burdening the medical system, it would truly be their own choice. Once a society decides it will care for those people at a cost to the general public, it becomes necessary to protect the public from the burden of their ignorance.
Honestly the overburden to the health system sounds like lame excuse. We don't have an overburden there because of the massive consumption of raw milk. Try to buy some legally and you'll get the picture of how hard it is to find and how expensive it is. I'll happily wave any rights to be emergency treated for any reason (traffic accidents included) if you grant me the right to live in peace and buy the milk and meat from sources I like because that's what this freedom is worth to me.
Anyone that I know that drinks raw milk, raw uncured meats, untreated water hasn't seen a doctor in over a decade.. not terribly scientific but a good indicator that I won't buy pharma-money backed "scientific" studies that show that low-fat, low-sodium and oats-in-cereal-bars are the solution to health issues. I'm all for science and capitalism but they're both not substitutes for common sense.
Saying "Everyone but me is lying to you." to ignorant people who are already suspicious of corporations and science is a simple way to consolidate power.
Once power is consolidated, you can then get paid by any snake oil salesman to say their snake oil is the best.
From the webpage:
"
The Executive Order begins to resolve the current disjointed handling of cryptocurrencies seized through forfeiture by, and scattered across, various Federal agencies.
Currently, no clear policy exists for managing these assets, leading to a lack of accountability and inadequate exploration of options to centralize, secure, or maximize their value.
Taking affirmative steps to centralize ownership, control, and management of these assets within the Federal government will ensure proper oversight, accurate tracking, and a cohesive approach to managing the government’s cryptocurrency holdings.
This move harnesses the power of digital assets for national prosperity, rather than letting them languish in limbo.
"
Well how would you know who to return it to? It's crypto, the genius system which will totally replace money, which doesn't allow you to track simple things like transaction history and remedy fraud like this.
It's not like a cambodian pig butchering operation is going to keep detailed ledgers of who they scammed and for how much.
> ”Well how would you know who to return it to? It's crypto, … which doesn't allow you to track simple things like transaction history”
That’s not actually correct. The blockchain contains a permanent, immutable, and public record of every transaction.
Obviously you also need a way to connect a given wallet ID (address) back to it’s owner, but if transactions originated from regulated platforms like Binance then they will have those records thanks to KYC/AML rules.
If the transaction originated from a private wallet, a fraud victim could simply submit proof of their wallet ID as part of their claim.
Since the majority of people don't run into those issues, they are blissfully unaware that if/when they have a major medical event they are under-insured.